The once glorious and renowned _Ephesus_ was seated in a fruitful vale, encompassed almost round with mountains[43], at a small distance from the _Caýster_, and about five miles eastward from cape _Trogilium_; where, at the common charge of all _Ionia_, the _Panionia_, or _common councils of Ionia_, were formerly celebrated. This vale rises advantagously in the middle with two or three little hills[44], on which the several parts of the antient city lay extended. The same spot of ground is still covered with the rich remains of its former glory. Such are the massy walls, the portals, the arches, the aqueducts, the marble chests, together with the dejected cornishes, shafts, and capitals of many lofty pillars. But the face of the whole yeilds a melancholy and disagreable prospect, being overrun with an incredible quantity of rank and luxuriant weeds, which serve only to corrupt the air, and to conceal the curiosities of the place. This we found to be a disadvantagous circumstance, and such as doubled the labour of this day in compassing the circuit of the city, and tracing the uncertain footsteps of so many valuable antiquities. But because these cannot so intelligibly be represented in the order, in which we viewed them, we shall methodically consider _Ephesus_, as lying in three distinct ruins of a Turkish, Christian, and Heathen city. The freshest ruins of this place appear to be Turkish, and such as witness, that it has been in considerable repute even under its last barbarous conqueror; who also has changed the name of _Ephesus_ into that of _Aiasalúck_. Here are to be seen the remains of five or six _mosques_, besides one which is still used for Mahometan service. In several places there occur the walls of ruined bagnios, tho they are incredibly increased by the fabulous Turks, and reported to have been here to the number of three hundred and sixty six. But that, which most plainly evidences the late riches of the place, are the many beautiful monuments, which we viewed among their burying places, most of them inscribed with fair Turkish characters. Tis observable, that these are cut rising from the plane of the stone, and not indented within the surface; which is the constant fashion of the Turks in all their public monuments, in opposition to the custom of other times and nations. It is not certain, whether the new castle, which stands to the northward of the old citadel, be of Grecian or Turkish fabric; however it is still kept in repair by the Turks, and filled within the circuit of the walls with fifty or sixty small cottages, which with two or three scattering tenements are the only habitations of the present _Ephesus_.